Research: the effect of Academies

[econ21]

At the request of SilverRusher, this is a thread to discuss the effects of academies. Specifically, SilverRusher raises the following questions:

1) Do they affect only generals coming of age/being adopted/being married into the family in the town, or the generals already in the town over a period of time, or both?

2) In what way do Academies boost the abilities of generals? Is it just as simple as for example adding 1 command, 1 influence and 1 management?

3) What, if any, traits to Academies bestow upon the generals?

4) Other than the loyalty bonus and the ones covered above and below, what bonuses are gained from academies?

5) How much to these "bonuses" differ between the different Academy levels?

6) If it is over a period of time that generals are affected (see question 1) then what time is it? Does it vary, and if so, how?

7) Do the Academy buildings affect a town's income in any way?

8) And the most important question, is the Academy simply about loyalty bonuses, making all the other questions here irrelevant?

Hitherto, my understanding was that Academies led to resident governors obtaining ancillary characters for their retinues at a faster rate over time. This is what I have observed from playing my games, but I have not looked for other effects (on traits or attributes). I would be interested to hear what other people have learnt on this subject.

[Simetrical]

The one and only thing an academy structure does in vanilla is giving generals ancillaries. This applies to all generals, young and old, just as any ancillary trigger does. There is no mention of the buildings in EDCT.txt, so they grant no traits, and neither do they give any effects whatsoever to the city itself in EDB.txt. They give ancillaries, that's it.

-Simetrical

[Oaty]

Perhaps some of it is hardcoded. But it seems an academy does help increase traits over a period of time.

[Simetrical]

I just don't believe that. I don't believe that trait triggers are hardcoded.

-Simetrical

[Malrubius]

The Cherry Vanilla Pack has several academy triggers, but there weren't any in vanilla that I could find (neither the traits file from 9/04 or 12/04). I also don't remember seeing any effect from having an academy (besides ancillaries) until I installed the CVP.

However, it is conceivable that some effects of the academy have been hard-coded, in the same way that I believe some of the crazy traits will produce the crazy prebattle speeches. Do I have any evidence? Only anecdotal.

[Aesculapius]

The ‘Academy’ buildings generate a relatively small proportion of the 190 different ancillaries: the Chirurgeon, the Doctor, the Geographer, the Historian, the Librarian, the Mathematician, the Philosopher, the Scribe, and (conditionally on other buildings) the two Freeman Clerks, the Geomancer, the Geometer, the Military Engineer, and the Mining Engineer. In addition, the academies educate the 42 ‘named’ ancillaries (such as Archimedes, Livy, Ariston of Cyrene), who can only appear in your retinue during the years of their historical lifetime. Contrary to belief in some circles, the Academies have no influence on traits at all.

Very modestly quoted from this treatise here........

To the best of my knowledge, the Academies have no other influence on traits, loyalty, income or anything else. I can't speak for the hardcoding, but I think it's pretty unlikely.